CRESSY L. WILBUR, M. D. 95 



months active work and strict enforcement of law each year. 

 No statistics are necessary for undertaking the prevention of 

 mortality from diarrhoeal diseases of infants, although it is true 

 that our knowledge of the importance and peculiar incidence 

 of these diseases with respect to age and seasonal occurrence 

 has been the result of thorough registration of birth and deaths. 



In the broader sense, however, accurate vital statistics are 

 indispensably necessary for the conduct of any intelligent cam- 

 paign against the preventable causes of death. The American 

 Association for Study and Prevention of Infant Mortality is not 

 founded for a day, but is an organization whose purpose must 

 be to lead the forces engaged in the saving of infant life this 

 year, and next year, and the year after, and so on until its 

 object has been accomplished. After the slaughter caused by 

 infantile diarrhoea has been stopped, there are other preventable 

 causes of infant mortality; their study and restriction may pro- 

 ceed while the larger and more pressing duty of saving infant 

 lives from filthy milk and other filthy food is being accom- 

 plished. The work of the Association and its success from 

 year to year can be measured only by complete vital records, 

 and it is therefore one of the paramount duties of this organi- 

 zation, in entering upon the contest with the foes of infant life, 

 to build up and support this scout service or intelligence de- 

 partment, which alone can give true and exact information for 

 the guidance of the active workers in this field of preventive 

 medicine. 



What we chiefly need in planning and conducting the work 

 for the prevention of deaths of infants are accurate statistics 

 of infant mortality for individual cities, rural districts, states, 

 and the nation as a whole. They should be thoroughly depend- 

 able, strictly up-to-date with respect to time, and should be 

 presented in such form that the results will be comparable, with 

 precision, among themselves and with those of foreign coun- 

 tries. After the gross rates are presented, a thorough analysis 

 of the returns should be made with respect to causes of death, 

 and also as regards monthly occurrence and relation to the parent 

 nativity, occupation of parents, sanitary condition of dwellings, 

 etc. But the first step is necessarily to secure complete and 

 comparable data for the total infantile mortality, because, if this 

 can not be done, it is evident that all the secondary details will 

 be more or less subject to question and comparatively valueless 

 as a guide for practical sanitary work. 



The accurate statement of infantile mortality requires the com- 

 plete and satisfactory registration of both births and deaths. 

 Infantile mortality is the ratio of the number of deaths of infants 



